just what constitutes a… suspiciously large orders of painkillers or other controlled substances.

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

State Board to Request Reports of Painkiller Orders

http://wvpublic.org/post/state-board-request-reports-painkiller-orders

West Virginia’s Board of Pharmacy plans to ask prescription drug wholesalers to report pharmacies that place suspiciously large orders of painkillers or other controlled substances.

 
Credit RayNata / wikimedia

The board plans to forward those reports to the state Attorney General’s Office, which last week sued a pharmacy in Boone County, alleging it provided too many highly addictive painkillers over more than a decade.

The distributors McKesson Corp. and Cardinal Health now notify the state of such questionable orders.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail (http://bit.ly/2hAI2Wi) reports the pharmacy board has agreed to send letters asking other wholesalers.

The board’s rules require they report suspicious prescription drug orders, but the regulations don’t spell out the criteria.

Distributors already submit reports on suspicious drug orders to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

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Warning from a friend

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

Tell all contacts from your list not to accept a video called the “Dance of the Pope”. It is a virus that formats your mobile. Beware it is very dangerous. They announced it today on the radio. Fwd this msg to as many as you can!

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Law of Supply & Demand works well for the drug cartels ?

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

DEA Lays Out New Dynamic for Regional Heroin Trafficking

http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/dea-lays-out-new-dynamic-regional-heroin-trafficking

A top DEA official has sounded the alarm over how heroin traffickers in Mexico have massively increased poppy cultivation and expanded their distribution networks into the east coast of the United States as they look to cash in on the growing number of US heroin users.

In Congressional testimony (pdf) on October 8 regarding drug abuse, Acting Deputy Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Jack Riley said the DEA had documented a 50 percent increase in the cultivation of poppy (the plant used to make heroin) in Mexico, primarily in the state of Guerrero and the Mexican “Golden Triangle” of Durango, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua.

Mexican criminal organizations such as the Sinaloa Cartel have also been expanding territorially in US markets and developing more sophisticated production techniques, Riley asserted. 

Traditionally, Riley said, the US heroin market has been divided by the Mississippi River: markets west of the river used Mexican black tar and brown powder heroin, while the most lucrative markets, the large east coast urban centers, were dominated by higher quality Colombian-produced white powder heroin. However, Mexican drug traffickers are now also competing for the lucrative East Coast market, introducing Mexican brown/black tar heroin but also seeking to produce their own version of the more refined white powder variety.

The preferred trafficking routes for these networks is the Southwest US-Mexico border, where heroin seizures doubled between 2009 and 2013 from 846 to 2,196 kilograms, according to Riley

The Mexican traffickers are supplying a rapidly increasing number of US heroin users, which more than doubled between 2007 and 2014, from 373,000 to 914,000, according to Riley. Today, he said, heroin is higher in purity, less expensive, and often easier to obtain than prescription opioids — such as the painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone. .

InSight Crime Analysis

There are numerous market forces that explain the changing dynamic in regional heroin production, trafficking and distribution.

One of most important is the rapidly rising demand as a result of the growing number of US users. As Riley elaborates on in his testimony, rising US heroin use is closely linked to abuse of prescription painkillers, the most commonly used illegal drug in the United States after marijuana. Many users start off on pills but turn to heroin because it is cheaper, more easily available or because it has a stronger effect.

Exploiting this growing market may also be making up for shortfalls in revenues elsewhere for Mexican traffickers. In recent years, US cocaine consumption has decreased and the legalization of marijuana in several US states has opened that market to increased competition, and the cartels may see heroin as a profitable replacement for these shrinking markets.

These new conditions appear to have led to Mexican traffickers developing a strategy based on three pillars; ramping up production, expanding into new markets, and innovating production techniques to better compete with the superior product of their Colombian rivals.  

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Hard to tell the difference between the CRIMINALS and LAW ENFORCEMENT/DEA

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

https://youtu.be/dm6xexu_wJY?t=3m32s

Former DEA agent gets a year in federal prison for tax evasion, witness tampering

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/former-dea-agent-gets-a-year-in-federal-prison-for-tax-evasion-witness/2306177

TAMPA — A former Drug Enforcement Administration agent was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day in prison, having pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his demanding cash from an imprisoned drug trafficker’s brother.

Samuel Murad, 62, once a respected federal agent, apologized in court for his role in a scheme that centered on efforts to secure an early release for Joe Pegg, whom Murad helped send to prison in the 1990s.

“I have no excuse for my behavior,” Murad said. “I’ve hurt my family. I’ve hurt my friends—

“You’ve also hurt the DEA,” U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew interjected. “You made law enforcement look bad.”

The scheme that ensnared Murad — and another former DEA agent who has already been sentenced — began in 2009 when Pegg’s lawyer hired Murad to assist in getting Pegg a reduced sentence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

More than a decade earlier, Murad had led an investigation into Pegg, the leader of a massive marijuana import operation.

Federal rules prohibited Murad from doing anything on Pegg’s behalf. He was advised as much in a written ethics opinion from a DEA attorney.

But the opinion noted that Murad was not restricted from providing “behind the scenes” advice to Pegg and his family.

Murad, who was retired, contacted DEA Agent Robert Quinn and asked him to handle, on the DEA side, the effort to reduce Pegg’s sentence.

Pegg, who is still in prison, is accused in a separate case of paying his former cellmate to act as a confidential source for the DEA so that he could receive a reduced sentence. The agency later made arrests based on the information the cellmate provided.

Murad wanted to get paid, too, for his efforts to spring Pegg from prison early, according to federal authorities. In June 2012, he sent Pegg’s brother, Buck Pegg, an email demanding $700,000.

“If we can’t come (to) some kind of understanding,” he wrote, “then you guys get to keep your money and (he) stays in jail because good luck getting him out without my testimony.”

Buck Pegg and Murad later met in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Gainesville, prosecutors said. There, Buck Pegg gave Murad a shopping bag with $223,000. Murad also took the $800 Pegg had in his wallet.

When the FBI began investigating the matter, Murad told Quinn not to talk to them. Quinn later admitted he lied to FBI agents about his knowledge of the scheme. He was sentenced to probation earlier this year.

In court Tuesday morning, Jerome Froelich, a lawyer for Buck Pegg, argued that his client was a victim in the case and was therefore entitled to restitution. He asserted that what Murad had done was extortion.

But prosecutors pointed out that they never charged Murad with extortion. He pleaded guilty only to tax evasion and witness tampering. Therefore, they argued, Buck Pegg was not entitled to restitution.

Judge Bucklew agreed, but also said that the matter “smells bad” and “doesn’t feel right.”

Murad’s defense featured a cameo appearance by former U.S. Attorney Robert O’Neill, who recalled a 2009 lunch meeting with the retired agent where the topic of Joe Pegg came up.

At the time, O’Neill was an assistant U.S. attorney.

Murad told O’Neill he was going to do some work for Pegg — meaning, help in Pegg’s efforts to get a reduced sentence.

“I said, ‘Sam, you can’t do that,'” O’Neill recalled.

O’Neill said he advised Murad to read the applicable federal laws and seek permission from the DEA first. About a month later, Murad called O’Neill and told him the agency had given him permission.

“It was pretty shocking,” O’Neill said.

Kehoe asked for a sentence of probation and community control. But Bucklew said Murad, a former law enforcement officer, was held to a higher standard.

“You knew better,” she said.

Along with prison, Bucklew ordered Murad to pay a $10,000 fine and $65,341 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

Contact Dan Sullivan at dsullivan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386. Follow @TimesDan.

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The FDA Should Approve Drugs Based on Evidence, Not Emotions

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

The FDA Should Approve Drugs Based on Evidence, Not Emotions

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2016/12/the_21st_century_cares_act_could_be_dangerous_for_everyone.html

On Dec. 7, the New York Times ran an inspiring, dangerous story about Celine Ryan, a 50-year-old whose advanced colon cancer was successfully treated with experimental immunotherapy. Inspiring, because researchers repeatedly rejected Ryan’s requests to participate in a clinical trial, but her heroic refusal to accept their verdict led to her eventual admission—and remission. Dangerous, because although the article emphasizes that success in one patient proves very little, Ryan’s story served as powerful anecdotal reinforcement of a widespread and mistaken view that groundbreaking cures are stuck in trial stages, and that patients need to take it upon themselves to fight bureaucratic gatekeepers for access. This type of narrative undermines the necessity of the Food and Drug Administration, whose scientific standards are crucial to keeping medical costs down, preventing health crises, and ensuring objective evaluations of new drugs.

The consequences of buying into this mistaken picture are illustrated perfectly by the recently approved 21st Century Cures Act, an enormous piece of health care legislation that includes everything from increased funding for the National Institutes of Health to programs that will fight opioid addiction. Packaged with these uncontroversial goodies, however, is a provision that asks the FDA to relax evidentiary standards for drug approval by granting weight to “real-world evidence” and “patient-experience data.” Supporters argue that the provision will allow patients quicker access to cures. If passed, it could also incentivize competitive development of new drugs by lowering their cost to market—the current gold-standard for evidence of efficacy is randomized placebo-controlled trials, which are time-consuming and expensive. Health policy experts, on the other hand, are rightfully nervous about the unintended results of laxer standards: A market flooded with potentially unsafe drugs that are no more effective than placebo.

From the perspective of a cancer sufferer who has just read Ryan’s story—gutsy individual triumphs over hidebound bureaucracy—it’s hard to take calls for caution seriously. How many others have suffered and died, the logic goes, because they didn’t stand up to the system? Patient advocacy groups—often funded by industry—routinely take this position, criticizing the FDA for excessive conservatism that forecloses on Americans’ right to decide what constitutes a promising treatment and whether or not to take it. (As one Wall Street Journal op-ed put it in 2002: “FDA to Patients: Drop Dead.”) The push for less stringent FDA standards makes willing but unlikely bedfellows of pharmaceutical companies and everyday people, united against the perceived inefficiency of callous government elites who prefer exercising power to saving lives.

But this picture of the FDA couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, regulations are in place to protect everyday people against the interests of pharmaceutical companies and our own impatience for new medicine. Left unregulated, the market for medicine can generate catastrophic results. Just ask Louise Medus, one of thousands of severely deformed “thalidomide babies” born in the late 1950s and early ’60s. (Medus, who is British, was born with limb deformities.) Thalidomide, developed to treat morning sickness, was made available in 49 countries for two years—despite early evidence that the drug might cause rare birth defects including phocomelia, the underdevelopment or absence of limbs. “I can’t imagine what my dad thought or felt when a grim-faced doctor led him to a delivery room an hour after my birth,” Medus told the Guardian. “All I know is that he almost fainted with shock when I was fully revealed and blurted out: ‘Surely you’re not going to allow a child in this state to live.’ ”

Unlike many other countries, the United States managed to avoid the thalidomide crisis, thanks to a heroic FDA regulator named Frances Oldham Kelsey. Despite intense pressure from the drug’s manufacturer, Oldham demanded further testing, pointing to inconclusive results about thalidomide’s efficacy in humans and initial evidence that the drug caused nervous system side effects. Six applications for approval were denied, and the subsequent birth of countless deformed babies like Medus vindicated the wisdom of Kelsey’s tenacity. For her efforts, she received the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service from John F. Kennedy in 1962. That same year Congress unanimously passed the landmark Kefauver Harris Amendment, which raised the evidentiary bar for new drug approval.

“It’s well-known scandals and crises like thalidomide that led to the FDA having the power it has today,” says Rachel Sachs, a law professor at Washington University who specializes in health law, innovation, and patient access. “Perhaps the existence of the FDA is a slight barrier to innovation. But in my view, it’s far more important to prevent unsafe, ineffective drugs from coming to market.”

Even if eroded standards don’t lead to a devastating public health crisis, it’s almost certain that they’ll lead to a massive increase in costly drugs that don’t actually work. As Sachs pointed out to me, ineffective drugs are already a problem. Under enormous pressure from patient advocacy groups and biotech companies, the FDA recently approved Exondys 51, a drug for a rare disease called Duchene’s muscular dystrophy, despite only limited evidence of efficacy and the sky-high cost of $300,000 per year. The manufacturer of Addyi, aka “pink Viagra,” secured approval for a drug that many experts believe to be not only ineffective but also dangerous. And a recent report suggests that more than a dozen cancer drugs with prices of more than $100,000 per year remain on the market without good evidence they work, approved on the basis of shoddy evidence. If anything, we should be strengthening the FDA’s regulatory oversight. Instead, we are weakening it at our own peril.

The reduced evidence standard proposed by the 21st Century Cares Act is a bad solution aimed at the wrong problem. Evidence is not collected or paid for by the FDA. (It’s paid for by the drug companies.) Reducing the standards simply means that the FDA will not have the necessary evidence it needs to ensure efficacy. “FDA approval is not what shows that a drug works; clinical data do that,” Derek Rowe, an expert on pharmaceutical development, wrote in response to the 21st Century Cures Act. “You can instruct everyone to collect less data, but then you will approve—and ask people and their insurance companies to pay for—more things that don’t actually work.”

So are we destined for rocketing insurance costs and another thalidomide? It’s still hard to gauge the potential consequences of the provision. According to Patti Zettler, a professor at Georgia State who served as associate chief counsel for the FDA, the provision’s vague wording gives the FDA a significant amount of interpretive authority. “There’s room for them to minimize the impact of the law and construe it narrowly,” she told me. Staff members of the FDA seem inclined to that approach, and recently offered a conservative interpretation of the new evidentiary standards in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Unfortunately, President-elect Trump seems to be on the bad side of the law.* His selection for head of the FDA might embrace the act, and open it to a free-for-all. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Jim O’Neill, rumored to be one of Trump’s picks for FDA commissioner, made an extreme case against FDA regulation of drug efficacy in a 2014 speech. “Let’s prove efficacy after they’ve been legalized,” he suggested, an absurd statement that reflects O’Neill’s frightening lack of scientific or medical qualifications. (For one thing, safety and efficacy are not separable factors in drug approval; side effects that are acceptable in effective cancer medication, say, would be unacceptable in headache medicine.) Trump is also rumored to be considering venture capitalist Scott Gottlieb, who, as a former deputy commissioner at the FDA, would be a more traditional choice.

Even without an FDA head who is abjectly anti-evidence, the bill’s passage paired with increased leniency toward pharmaceutical companies could be devastating. Imagine if a drug were developed with a focus on addressing a condition with a specific end point, for example, the ability to concentrate. Without randomized controlled trials, the data on these drugs is virtually guaranteed to be infected by bias, especially if it comes from the company that developed them. Autism would be an ideal condition, since autism research is plagued by difficulties distinguishing real treatment effects from placebo—exactly the kind of problem that high-quality trials are designed to address.

Next, pharma companies could sponsor patient advocacy groups’ campaigns for approval, using testimony from mothers whose children participated in experimental, low-quality trials with miraculous results. Trump tweets something about how the FDA needs to get its act in gear so autistic children don’t suffer. So, they do, and a potentially unsafe, ineffective, and highly profitable medication is approved. Rinse and repeat.

This will be the model for medication approval driven by outrage and desperation, rather than evidence and reason. It is tragic that some people end up waiting for effective treatment, and it is inspiring when patients like Ryan take matters into their own hands and end up beating the odds. I cannot imagine anything more painful than watching a loved one suffer or die, only to find out that speedier approval might have saved them. But allowing such stories to inform our medical decisions is not kind; it is potentially dangerous. This is precisely the kind of mistake that randomized controlled trials are meant to guard against in medicine. Let’s not make the same mistake with public policy.

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Botticelli underwent a court-ordered treatment program for alcohol abuse

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

Obama’s drug policy chief pushes for a compassionate solution to the opioid crisis

fusion.net/story/375351/michael-botticelli-jorge-ramos-obama-drug-policy/

Michael Botticelli doesn’t want to be known as the Obama administration’s “drug czar.”

That’s because Botticelli, the head of National Drug Control Policy at the White House, thinks that moniker calls back to the failed drug policies of other administrations, which he said haven’t focused enough time and energy on fighting addiction as a public health issue.

In a new interview on AMERICA with Jorge Ramos, Botticelli said he’s spent his tenure championing a more humane and compassionate approach to battling to ongoing heroin epidemic in the United States.

 “The disease of addiction…is not people’s moral failing or a sign of character weakness, this is a deep-rooted disease that we can’t arrest and incarcerate our way out of,” Botticelli told Ramos.

It’s an issue that hits close to home for the White House official. Botticelli is the first person to serve as drug policy chief who’s lived through substance abuse recovery. After causing a car accident in 1988 while driving under the influence, Botticelli underwent a court-ordered treatment program for alcohol abuse. Now, he’s been sober for 27 years.

Although the rate of overdoses related to opioid abuse are on the rise, Botticelli said the administration is already seeing evidence that its policies are taking hold, saying they’ve seen reductions in doctors prescribing the powerful painkillers that can lead to heroin use. He’s also confident that the 21st Century Cures Act, the major healthcare legislation that passed with bipartisan congressional support this month, will only continue that momentum.

President Obama is slated to sign the bill, which contains provisions to fight opioid abuse, on Tuesday.

 Asked about what role legalization could play in stemming the demand for illegal drugs crossing the Mexican border into the United States, Botticelli said one major miscalculation in the drug war was a focus only on cracking down only on the drug supply, rather than also addressing the demand for drugs at home.

“I don’t believe that legalization is really going to solve our drug use and its consequences in the United States,” he said. “One just has to look at the prescription drug issue we have here in the United States. These are not drugs that came across the border. These are drugs that came from our own medical community.”

So as the sun sets on the Obama administration, how does Botticelli want to be remembered for his drug policy work?

“I’ve been called the recovery czar. I think it shows drug policy can have a much more humane response,” he said. “We have to have a comprehensive response, and that’s been what this administration has tried to put forward.”

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OMG! : kratom, the state’s poison control center has received 24 calls so far this year, in comparison with five in 2015.

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

MIAMI, FL - MAY 10: In this photo illustration, capsules of the drug Kratom are seen on May 10, 2016 in Miami, Florida. The herbal supplement is a psychoactive drug derived from the leaves of the kratom plant and it's been reported that people are using the supplement to get high and some states are banning the supplement. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Herbal drug kratom faces uncertain legal future, despite public outpouring

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/whats-next-kratom/

Kratom, a leafy-green herbal supplement used by an estimated 3 to 5 million Americans, has inspired tens of thousands of responses in a public comment period over its possible controlled substance designation by the Drug Enforcement Agency.

The substance is derived from a Southeast Asian plant that belongs to the same family as coffee. It’s ground down into an earthy-green powder and then put inside capsules or mixed into a liquid and sipped like tea. Depending on how much is ingested, it can act as a stimulant or a painkiller.

READ MORE: If DEA blocks kratom, promising research on opioid alternative may suffer

Kratom has been used for hundreds of years in places like Thailand, but only within the last few years has it became popular in the U.S. It is widely available online and in convenience stores.

It grabbed the attention of the DEA when calls to poison control centers increased ten-fold from 2010 to 2015. Most callers complained about effects such as increased heart rate, agitation, drowsiness, nausea, and hypertension. One death was reported in a person who was also on an antidepressant and a mood stabilizer. So far, in 2016, the American Association of Poison Control Centers has received around 480 calls about kratom. (For context, critics cite that the center has received more than 10,000 calls just this year for laundry detergent pods.)

In Illinois, where earlier this year the federal government confiscated hundreds of thousands of dollars of kratom, the state’s poison control center has received 24 calls so far this year, in comparison with five in 2015. For perspective, there have been 1,772 calls for prescription opioids in 2016 so far.

Michael Wahl, the medical director of the Illinois Poison Center said most of the calls came from hospital emergency centers where users experienced more serious effects like hallucinations, seizures, and withdrawal from the plant.

In August, in response to the uptick in calls to poison control centers, the DEA announced emergency scheduling of the legal drug, which would have temporarily made kratom a Schedule I substance like heroin, banning the substance and bypassing the normal process.

However, pushback from the public and members of Congress resulted in an unprecedented reversal. The DEA withdrew the immediate scheduling, and opened a public comment period that ended Dec. 1.

The DEA received some 23,210 comments online, an abnormally high amount, according to DEA spokesperson Melvin Patterson. He said all comments will be taken into consideration in the search to find out which benefits, if any, kratom provides. Personal stories offered by commenters could help the DEA make a decision despite a lack of research on and knowledge of the drug’s effects.

Dr. Richard Clark of U.C. San Diego’s toxicology department says our lack of knowledge is exactly why we should be cautious. “The most educated way to approaching it is, if we don’t know much, we ought to be careful, and maybe banning it is the right way to go so it doesn’t hit the streets full force,” Clark said.

Clark is concerned about how the herb affects our brain, and in particular how it interacts with our brain’s opioid receptors. “We know that most drugs that affect those receptors can build up tolerance and dependence, and there are a couple cases that I’ve seen that suggest that people can get dependent and addicted on kratom.”

Andrew Turner, a Maryland resident who became active in efforts to keep kratom legal, will be personally affected by the DEA’s decision. He spent more than nine years in the U.S. military, serving in Iraq, Jordan, and South Korea. His experience landed him a long list of ailments like severe PTSD, cluster headaches and degenerative disc disease.

“All these things work against me, and it makes life hard to deal with,”Turner said.

He received painkillers and other pharmaceuticals from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but found that the prescription drugs did not help him, and the side effects were damaging.

After finding kratom about two years ago he hasn’t taken anything else for his pain, aside from the occasional Tylenol.

“Kratom doesn’t fix the symptoms but it gives me an overall sense of well-being,” Turner said. “The ticks go away, my speech is much more eased. It’d be awesome if it were a magical cure; it isn’t, but it helps.”

Along with the comments, the DEA will receive analysis from the FDA, which will assess the drug based on eight factors. Patterson says the decision will be largely dependent on this analysis.

An advocacy group called the American Kratom Association conducted a study using the same eight-factor analysis, headed by a researcher previously with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). It concluded that there was “insufficient evidence for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to ban or otherwise restrict the coffee-like herb kratom under the Controlled Substances Act.”

Once the DEA receives the FDA assessment and goes through the public comments, there are a couple of possible outcomes: it could return to emergency scheduling putting kratom into Schedule I immediately; the DEA could go through routine scheduling opening up another public comment period; or scheduling could not be pursued at all.

Turner, the military veteran, knows kratom has to go through the DEA’s process and welcomes regulation, but he doesn’t believe it’s being given a fair assessment.

“It’s going to need some sort of regulation. Healthy oversight helps the market and helps the consumer and I think that’s what everyone is hoping for,” said Turner. “But we don’t get the feeling that the DEA is even trying to make it safe, because if they ban it they are going to create a black market.”

For now, kratom is legal, but considered a drug of concern. Online shops and brick and mortar stores selling kratom are doing so legally.

A petition with more than 145,000 signatures reached the threshold to warrant comment from the White House. The Obama administration has no deadline to comment and has not yet weighed in, although they are expected to give remarks.

 

 

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Treatment reserved for addicts…. treatment for chronic pain — not so much !

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

$20.4 million invested into 45 Pennsylvania drug treatment centers, six in Midstate

abc27.com/2016/12/12/20-4-million-invested-into-45-pennsylvania-drug-treatment-centers-six-in-midstate/?

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – The stress of the holiday season can be hard for many and even more challenging for those struggling with opioid addiction. Governor Tom Wolf recently made an investment in drug treatment in hopes of tackling those holiday blues.

Wolf spent $15 million in state dollars and $5.4 million in federal dollars for the Centers of Excellence to battle the drug epidemic taking 10 lives a day in Pennsylvania.

Josh, left, and Todd, second from left, died of heroin overdoses.
Josh, left, and Todd, second from left, died of heroin overdoses.

“I was raised the oldest of three boys in Cambria County, Pennsylvania,” Jason Snyder said.

Snyder describes his family as blue collar, working class, and typical until tragedy entered their lives.

“Addiction became front and center in our lives,” Snyder said. “In 2005, my brother Todd at age 28 died of a heroin overdose.”

Todd’s girlfriend called Snyder, who found his brother dead in the kitchen.

“I had to make the phone call and told my mother Todd had overdosed,” Snyder said. “That set off a chain reaction of wailing.”

Todd left behind his five-year-old daughter Trinity.

Jason Snyder and his nephew Paighton.
Jason Snyder and his nephew Paighton.

 

“When it happened again a little more than two and a half years later, we were devastated,” Snyder said.

This time, Snyder’s mother called him to tell him the tragic news. His brother Josh also died of a heroin overdose and never had the chance to meet his son Paighton, who was born two months after he died.

“I was left as the last man standing so to speak, the last living child of my parents, which made it all the more difficult for me in 2011 to tell them that I was entering inpatient drug treatment for an addiction to prescription pain medication,” Snyder explained.

Stigma is one of the obstacles that stopped Snyder from getting treatment.

“I had been doing drugs and alcohol for 20 years,” he said.

He was introduced to prescription pain killers and eventually bought them on the streets.

Snyder has been clean for five years and now helps others who were once in his shoes. He works at the Department of Human Services, which runs the Centers of Excellence.

“We’re going to treat the whole person,” Snyder said. We’re not just going to treat the individual’s addiction, but we’re also going to treat any underlying mental health or physical health issues that may be driving that person’s addiction.”

Those receiving help at the Centers will received medication-assisted treatment, as well as employment opportunities and training.

The Snyder brothers on the beach.
The Snyder brothers on the beach.

 

“The state has to respond, and we have to do a better job of providing quality care and ensure that people stay in treatment longer if we are to begin to reverse what has been over the last several years a steadily increasing death toll,” Snyder said.

Snyder said only 48 percent of people with an opioid addiction in 2014 got treatment, and of that percentage, only 33 percent remained engaged in treatment for more than 30 days. He hopes the Centers of Excellence can change that.

“This is Governor Wolf’s really signature response to addressing the opioid epidemic,” Snyder said.

Six of the 45 Centers of Excellence are in the Midstate. You can see the full list of locations by clicking here. Patients can pay through insurance or Medicaid.

“Addiction affects anyone. It’s urban, it’s suburban, it’s families like mine, it’s comes from broken families, good families, wealthy families. It knows no boundaries,” Snyder said.

3,383 people died from drug overdoses in Pennsylvania in 2015. That’s up from more than 2,500 in 2014, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs.

The Governor recently launched a toll-free hotline for people battling a heroin or prescription drug addiction. You can call 1-800-662-HELP 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The hotline is staffed by trained professional and is available in both English and Spanish.

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Alleged Drug Overcharging Scheme Spawns 10 Lawsuits

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

Alleged Drug Overcharging Scheme Spawns 10 Lawsuits

https://www.bna.com/alleged-drug-overcharging-n73014448384/

Dec. 9 — Accusations of a prescription drug overcharging scheme involving some of the country’s largest pharmacy benefit managers and health insurers have spawned 10 proposed class actions in the past two months.

Taken together, the lawsuits claim that PBMs OptumRx and Humana Pharmacy Solutions Inc. worked with health insurers to overcharge patients for prescription drugs. The most recent complaints were filed on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8 against Cigna and UnitedHealth, respectively. According to the lawsuits, when a given prescription drug costs less than a patient’s copayment amount, insurers including United Healthcare, Cigna and Humana “claw back” the difference through an improper scheme kept hidden from patients ( Davis v. OptumRx, Inc. , C.D. Cal., No. 8:16-cv-02165, complaint filed 12/7/16 ; Mastra v. UnitedHealth Grp., Inc. , D. Minn., No. 0:16-cv-04119, complaint filed 12/8/16 ).

Since Oct. 4, at least 10 lawsuits have been filed challenging this alleged scheme. The recent complaint against UnitedHealth claims that “tens of thousands” of people have been affected, while the Cigna lawsuit places the number in the “hundreds of thousands.”

Bloomberg Law®, an integrated legal research and business intelligence solution, combines trusted news and analysis with cutting-edge technology to provide legal professionals tools to be proactive advisors.

 

Many of the lawsuits cite an investigation into health insurance clawbacks that New Orleans television station Fox 8 began airing in May. The investigation found that some insured patients may be paying more for prescription drugs than they would if they lacked insurance altogether.

The Dec. 7 lawsuit against Cigna and OptumRx was filed by Whatley Kallas LLP, Steel Wright Gray & Hutchinson PLLC and Mauriello Law Firm. This legal team also filed a lawsuit against OptumRX and UnitedHealth on Nov. 23.

The Dec. 8 suit against UnitedHealth was filed by Gustafson Gluek.

A representative for Cigna declined to comment on the lawsuit against it. UnitedHealth representatives didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jacklyn Wille in Washington at jwille@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jo-el J. Meyer at jmeyer@bna.com

For More Information

Text of the complaint against Cigna and OptumRx is at http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Davis_v_Optumrx_Inc_et_al_Docket_No_816cv02165_CD_Cal_Dec_07_2016/1. Text of the complaint against UnitedHealth is at http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Mastra_v_UnitedHealth_Group_Inc_et_al_Docket_No_016cv04119_D_Minn.

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OHIO: makes Gabapentin a controlled substance indirectly ?

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Pharmaciststeve

Effective Dec 1, Pharmacies, Prescribers, and Wholesalers Must Report Gabapentin to Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System

http://www.natlawreview.com/article/effective-dec-1-pharmacies-prescribers-and-wholesalers-must-report-gabapentin-to

Beginning December 1, 2016, the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy requires pharmacies, prescribers, and wholesalers to report the dispensing, personal furnishing, and wholesale sale of all products containing gabapentin (brand names: Neurontin, Gralise, Horizant) to the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System (OARRS). Gabapentin has not been reclassified as a controlled substance, but it is being added to the Board’s list of drugs reportable to OARRS following increased reports of misuse, abuse, and concomitant abuse of gabapentin nationwide.1

No new requirement to review an OARRS report prior to dispensing gabapentin

Unlike the rules requiring pharmacists and prescribers to request and review an OARRS report prior to dispensing, prescribing, or personally furnishing controlled substances, there is no requirement to request and review an OARRS report prior to dispensing, prescribing, or personally furnishing gabapentin. Pharmacists and prescribers are expected to use professional judgment to determine the need to request an OARRS report prior to dispensing, prescribing or personally furnishing gabapentin.

Changes to prior exemptions to reporting

Pharmacies or prescribers that were previously exempt from OARRS reporting requirements because they did not dispense or personally furnish controlled substances do not need to reapply for a reporting exemption if they do not dispense or personally furnish gabapentin. However, pharmacies and prescribers that were previously exempt from OARRS reporting requirements, but do dispense or personally furnish gabapentin, must begin reporting such dispensing or personal furnishing to OARRS effective December 1, 2016.

More information on reporting to OARRS can be found in the Ohio PMP Handbook, available under the Pharmacies & Prescribers section on the OARRS website.

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